#533: ZWIGOFF, Terry: Crumb (1995)

ZWIGOFF, Terry (United States)

Crumb [1995]

Spine #533
DVD

Terry Zwigoff's landmark 1995 film is an intimate documentary portrait of the underground artist Robert Crumb, whose unique drawing style and sexually and racially provocative subject matter have made him a household name in popular American art. Zwigoff candidly and colorfully delves into the details of Crumb's incredible career and life, including his family of reclusive eccentrics, some of the most remarkable people you'll ever see on-screen. At once a profound biographical portrait, a riotous examination of a man's controversial art, and a devastating look at a troubled family, Crumb is a geniune American original.

120 minutes
Color

Monaural

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2010

Director

Terry Zwigoff was 46 when he directed Crumb.

Other Zwigoff films in the Collection:

#532: Louie Bluie (1985)
#872: Ghost World (2001)

The Film

One’s entitled to think that Crumb is a sexist, racist, misogynistic SOB, based on a few of his very disturbing comix … but like many other “disturbed” artists (Van Gogh, anyone?), there is simply no denying his talent.

Zwigoff’s unique documentary shows the artist in various settings, including his Philadelphia home, where his brother Charles still lives with his mother, and they discuss the brutality and insanity of their upbringing as Robert laughs and Charles seems to smirk in psychological pain …

There is also the Robert who attends a posh gallery which features his work. He looks uncomfortable.

In a comic book store, the clerk asks if he could get an autograph. “No, I don’t do that,” says Crumb.

There’s a Manhattan rooftop meeting with an old girlfriend who looks wounded as Crumb says he’s never loved anyone. “But you said ‘I love you’ to me all the time!” she says desperately. “Just words,” replies Bob.

There’s his other brother — Max — who sits on a bed of nails for two hours every day, as he ingests a long cloth thread, which he claims cleans his intestines. He begs on the streets of San Francisco every day, as well.

And then there’s Crumb’s son — Jesse — who inherited his father’s talent (as did most of his offspring). He gently criticizes his copying of a portrait of insane asylum women inmates — he didn’t get the lips quite right.

Crumb — who could have been a multimillionaire, if he had bothered to protect his intellectual property rights — is in the process of moving to southern France, a move financed by the sale of some of his work. He still works, and has produced a work of genius that was created after the film wrapped:

He says he gave Jesse $500 to come visit him in France. Jesse says he never got the money. He later died in a car crash.

**

One wishes Zwigoff had spent more time investigating Crumb’s astonishing collection of 78-RPM race records from the 20’s and 30’s.

Crumb lists six tunes “that are always running through my head”:

1. Kentucky Blues — Fess Williams & His Royal Flush Orchestra (1929)
2. Love is Like That — Ray West & His Cafe Ray West Orchestra (1930)
3. Decatur Street Rag — Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra (1925)
4. No No Blues — Willie Baker (1929)
5. Jig Walk — Ben Bernie & His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra (1926)
6. Bay Rum Song — Billy Hays & His Orchestra (1929)

Highly recommended, it is a stunning and completely authentic graphic depiction of all 30 chapters of the Book of Genesis. Look for the sons of Noah as the Three Stooges.

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

Twenty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and artwork by Charles, Jesse, Maxon, and Robert Crumb.

Rosenbaum:

“It’s a truthful film and a troubling one, and the highly skillful way in which it’s structured and focused — oscillating among different periods in Crumb’s life, from East Coast to West Coast, from biography to commentary, among family, colleagues, and critics — which, Zwigoff says, producer Lynn O’Donnell helped him achieve, contributes greatly to its success. The creation of such a complex weave, while proceeding so logically and fluidly, without any sense of shifting gears, is one of the film’s outstanding achievements.”

Crumb:

In his tiny all-CAPS writing, Crumb describes the “Chinese Curse” which he believes infiltrated his family. Under the influence of LSD, Crumb imagines that his Marine Corps father — stationed in Shanghai in the mid-30’s — murdered a Chinese beggar in cold blood.

“What about Charles, always hanging by some vague, fatal thread to what he calls ‘Eastern mysticism’? He sees himself as a failed mystic … has this Chinese curse helped to wreck his life?

Charles committed suicide shortly after the film’s release.

**

Also included is a reproduction of Charles’s “Talent Test.”

Commentary

• Featuring Zwigoff, from 2010
• Zwigoff spend 8 years making this film. Of course, it was lack of money which always held it up. With a committed producer in O’Donnell, they kept going despite the lack of enthusiasm at various previews.
• Finally, the New York Film Festival took it, and from there it got good critical reviews and got some proper distribution. This commentary came about in 2005 when Zwigoff — who wasn’t satisfied with the print quality — got Sony to agree to remaster the film in exchange for both of these commentaries.
• This solo commentary is packed with good personal info.
• With Zwigoff and critic Roger Ebert, from 2006.
• Ebert provides a critical viewpoint that Zwigoff can’t provide.

More than fifty minutes

Of unused footage, with commentary by Zwigoff. (*)

• Squirrely the Squirrel
• Early 70’s comix.
• The Early Days
• Robert and Charles; moving to Cleveland, working at the greeting card company; marrying Dana, how she tried to poison him, etc.
• The O’Farrell Theatre *
• More footage from the “big-butt” photo shoot. Check out the Working Girl’s Doodle Pad. [commentary: taking $10,000 from the Mitchell Brothers.]
• Sex Life Before and After Fame
• How the cheerleader ignored him before and gave herself to him afterwards. A major source of his rage …
• Robert’s Collections
• “This is very private, but for the sake of art, I guess we could look at these.”
• Stories about Charles Sr.
• More tales of the dysfunctional family …
• Family Comics and Letters from Charles
• Including one by Sandra …
• Going to the Mall
• Aline drives. They almost buy a personalized coffee mug. She leaves him on a mall bench, where — of course, he draws all the Republicans …
• The Politics of Rich and Poor
• Robert reads this book and gets upset. “It’s about how the Republicans have figured out this ingenious way of using government as a racket.”
• Robert’s Artistic Musings (my favorite)
• “God, I hate people. Jesus. When you have that much hate in you, you’ve gotta get it out. It’s a pleasure to get it out. It’s work. And people actually pay me to actually buy this stuff that I do. It’s great … I always feel abnormal out in the world; I don’t belong, I don’t fit in, I don’t like what they like, my sensibilities aren’t the same. I can’t stand to see people bopping and jiving to modern pop music, it just turns my stomach. I’m a weirdo malcontent. I’m just a cranky old meanie guy — I just like to put everything down; I hate everything. I like to bust all their bubbles, all their dreams, ideals. What a bunch of foolish nonsense it is.”
• Cheap Suit Serenaders *
• The band. No Steve Martin, but Crumb plays the banjo okay. [commentary: last gig before Crumb moves to France; that’s Zwigoff on cello …]
• Letters to Marty Pahls
• Stunning artwork-letters to MP from his early twenties, confessing all his suicidal thoughts.
• Maxon’s Hostility
• Robert and Charles both agree that Maxon can’t become a true mystic until he lets go of his argumentative nature.
• Defining Great Art
• “What do I think makes great art? I don’t know, hard to pinpoint; I can’t … CUT!”

Stills gallery

Extras Rating (0-40):

37

56 + 37 =

93

By Director
By Spine #